


I Am

by caermit67



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 3
Genre: Gender Identity, M/M, Trans Male Character, Transphobia, Underage Drinking, and a bit of a character study, tfw your childhood bully doesn't misgender you but your loved ones do, this is a coming of age story kinda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-16 23:42:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28715205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caermit67/pseuds/caermit67
Summary: Nosebleed didn't bother to fix her face from defiance when her father spoke to her because James was looking over her shoulder anyways. He looked over Nosebleed’s shoulder like he was expecting to see his daughter on the other side.Butch wouldn't say he's friends with the Doctor's kid. But he wouldn't say they're enemies. The Doctor's kid wouldn't agree.
Relationships: Butch DeLoria & Male Lone Wanderer, Butch DeLoria/Male Lone Wanderer
Kudos: 13





	I Am

I am—yet what I am none cares or knows;  
My friends forsake me like a memory lost:  
I am the self-consumer of my woes—  
They rise and vanish in oblivious host,  
Like shadows in love’s frenzied stifled throes  
And yet I am, and live—like vapours tossed 

\--

The Doctor didn’t look his daughter in the eye anymore. 

It hadn’t taken long for Butch to notice. His family might sit across the cafeteria from the Kims (and if he said watching those high and mighty bastards sitting on the good side right next to the overseer didn’t still boil his blood after 16 years of living you could call him a liar and a fink), but it's not like the cafeteria was huge. 

The labour workers had a different lunch break then families, and now that he was 16 he should’ve been sitting at this table an hour earlier, without his mother leering at him. He should’ve been laughing at Wally’s jokes, kicking Paul’s shins under the table. Not trying to ignore the sloppy way his mother smacked her lips while glaring daggers at a tomboy nerd like Nosebleed. 

When he was a kid, he’d dreamed of the day his lunch break could be spent with the gang, sitting at a table and goofing off without the raspy, irritating, infuriating voice of his mother guiding him through every morsel. He didn’t have an appetite anymore, and shoved his food away with a huff. 

He’d thought the reason that Nosebleed came to this lunch was because her and her father were as tightnit as they were lame, the same reason Amata groveled at her daddy’s feet every meal, the suck-up little bitches. 

But ever since the G.O.A.T, there had been rumors. The others in the vault knew, to an extent. They knew enough that the doctor's daughter was going through a phase, the poor unpretty thing extending her last days of irresponsibility before she went back to being her father’s daughter, top of the class and bottom of the barrel. 

Butch scowled into his food, pretending he couldn’t hear his mother’s catty chattering over the din of forks clinking against plates and amiable conversation.

He didn’t care if Kim had decided to actually grow a pair and was dealing with the consequences. He’d been dealing with damn consequences all his fucking life, and no one was making room for him at their pity parties. 

But Butch couln’t help but watch her, sometimes. He had heard James’s caring fatherly voice countless times, growing up, being sent to the clinic by Mrs. Armstrong for bruises he didn’t want to talk about. He didn’t hear it anymore. He heard stilted politeness and watched as Nosebleed didn't bother to fix her face from defiance when her father spoke to her because James was looking over her shoulder anyways. He looked over Nosebleed’s shoulder like he was expecting to see his daughter on the other side. 

\--

Nosebleed wasn’t his only name. It was the least insulting, there was no meat on that bone left to pick at aside from the embarrassing memory of an eight year old sticking fingers up her nose (because even then he was nervous all the time) until blood came gushing out. Butch’s gang had called him more inventive things over the years, but Nosebleed stuck like nothing else. Then there was his birth name, which was the worst case scenario, and of course what most of the vault residents called him: Kim. James Kim’s kid.

“Daddy’s girl,” as Butch would call it. Like Wally didn’t lick his dad’s boots clean every night. Like Paul’s dad wasn’t chief of fucking security. What they really meant was just “girl”. They should have left it at that. 

Butch hadn’t gotten much more violent over the years. They were long past the days of swirlies in toilets, getting shoved into lockers or even the classic “accidental tripping”. Sure, Nosebleed couldn’t walk from his apartment to the clinic without being followed by snickering, or one of the Tunnel Snakes trying to bait him with insults, or Butch himself swinging an arm around his shoulder and roughing him around, but it seemed the Butch had declared himself “over” beating the shit out of Nosebleed for no good reason. 

He only beat the shit out of Nosebleed when he had a reason, like how he treated everyone else in the vault. Butch got in a fight if someone looked at him wrong. Butch got in a fight if someone blinked at him wrong. Honestly, Nosebleed was probably the person Butch fought the LEAST because at least Kim seemed to be the only one who had enough experience to recognize when Butch was getting pissed off. Butch was a loose cannon, but at least he had his tells. 

Wally had arguably gotten worse. 

From what Kim could tell, Wally had left the Tunnel Snakes a week after apprenticeships had ended. One of their members making security guard was a live mine to begin with, and things snapping wasn’t exactly the biggest shock. Rumor was, the final fallout had been when Wally’d refused to give Butch security clearance to pull some prank in the generator room, and the two had ended up in the clinic overnight with broken bones and sore egos. 

Wally had decided to start respecting the rules, and Butch had continued to hate them. His leather jacket had been burned, and another had to be salvaged when they replaced him with Freddie.

Freddie had asked Nosebleed to help with the stitching, and that's when he had known his old friend was a lost cause.

Wally had more anger than all of the tunnel snakes combined, that had always been true, with the addition of the shortest fuse and largest blast radius. Without Butch holding him back by the collar he was a fucking animal. He’d jump Kim for no reason, beating Nosebleed harder and more frequently in that first week then in his whole life combined. Kim had been restrained to his Dad’s office for a full three days to be treated, though Nosebleed knew it was just his dad’s feeble plan to give Wally time to calm down, hopefully enough time to restrain himself before Wally Mack straight up killed his daughter. 

Neither of them said it though. Neither of them said Wally’s name, or mentioned that this charade had gone too far, or said anything that could possibly allude to the problem no one in the vault ever thought to address. Neither of them talked about it because it was shameful, to be the father of the punching bag, to be the family of the loser kid, to be responsible for the dweller who’s name the vault would forget out of embarrassment when he finally fucking died.

After that week Kim memorized Wally’s schedule and walking patterns so as to never run into him again. It always took him an extra few minutes to make it to the clinic, but it was worth it to keep himself out of the black and blues. 

He did his job and kept his nose to the ground. He never had the growth spurt every book on his shelf had promised him. His 17th birthday passed without comment, Amata was studying for a reactor safety exam and Jonas was out sick. Nosebleed spent hours that night unloading magazines at the shooting range until the target had enough holes punched through that he couldn’t see where his shots were hitting. He didn’t go home, slept on the floor, and his father didn’t even look up from his terminal when he clocked in for work the next morning. 

Amata passed her exam. He never bothered reminding her. 

Today wasn’t a day so bad as that though. Today was actually pretty nice. James had been so wrapped up with an experiment he’d been spending nights at the clinic, which meant Kim was free to spend his nights getting tipsy and reading medical journals on the couch in the living room. Amata even came over, once or twice, but she didn’t drink. He could tell she judged him for it. He didn’t really care. 

James was presenting his findings to the overseer today with Jonas, which meant Kim was spending the last moments of his dad-cation alone in the clinic. There weren’t any appointments booked, so today was just going to be slow. Nosebleed was bored, and a little hungover, and thinking about how nice it would be to take a nap. 

This future nap was what he was thinking of while he digitized the week’s paperwork at the terminal. The door to the clinic whooshed opened and he glanced up. For a moment, his heart stopped, crawled up his chest and lodged itself in his throat. 

Wally Mack stared at him. He stared back. Wally Mack walked into the room, looking around casually, a sour look on his face. He looked at Nosebleed again, and everything seemed to come to a halt, everything except those eyes. Hungry, predatory, angry. They flickered in their sockets like Andy’s camera on the fritz, but maybe that was just Kim seeing things. 

He crossed his arms impatiently. “I need the pickup order.” 

Nosebleed blinked, “...pickup order? What order do you mean?” His voice shot up an octave, and he wanted nothing more than for the floor to open up and swallow him whole. 

Wally’s eyebrow twitched. “The order,” he said, and Kim started to whiteknuckle his desk, “The stupid- the thing. I don’t know. This is your job, you’re supposed to be giving me an order.” 

Kim exited out of his file, not even bothering saving, and opened up Wally Mack’s. He nodded his head agreeably, “Yes, okay, what medication did you order?” Wally Mack glared at him, nonplussed, and Nosebleed wanted to scream, “What medication are you here to order?” 

“No, you’re supposed to be giving me an order,” Wally insisted, “I’m picking up an order.” 

“What medication are you picking up?” Nosebleed tried again, and against all odds Wally somehow managed to twist his face into an even more oafish expression of rage. Kim scrolled to the bottom of his file, which had not been changed since four months ago, at his yearly checkup. 

“The order! I’m just supposed to pick it up, I didn’t get medication. I just need my order!”

“Okay,” Nosebleed tried to de-escalate, “Walk me back. Who told you to come pick something up today.” 

Wally clenched his fists at his sides and visibly seethed. “Dr. Kim,” he grits out between, “He gives me my order every month.” 

“What are the contents of the order,” Kim tried to press, but it was a step too far.

“Don’t condescend at me like I’m stupid, you’re the one fucking this up,” Wally exploded, his face screwed up in blind, ugly fury. “You can’t turn me away, I’m a goddamn vault officer, bitch!”

“I’m not keeping it from you,” Kim insisted, “I’ll give you what you want, I just need to know what’s in the or-” 

“You are fucking asking for it, cunt!” Wally bellowed, throwing his arms up in the air. He puffed up in size like a grizzly bear getting on its hind legs. Kim was small, half his height by comparison, and in the moment of fear he was paralyzed.

He may have made a pathetic squeak of panic. It was undignified. 

Wally crossed the room in four long strides and it was just enough time for Nosebleed to scramble out of his desk chair and clutch it to his chest for safety. Wally stalked behind his desk and Nosebleed backed into the corner, pinned between man and filing cabinet, and not in the fun way. It was never the fun way for Kim. 

“I’m sorr-'' He cut himself off when he yelped in fear, as Wally wrenched the rolling chair from between them and tossed it over the desk and across the room. It crashed his terminal to the floor, sent papers flying, and skidded until colliding with a metal instrument table.

Then, Wally punched him. 

Nosebleed had been in fights before. He’d won fights before, like when he was twelve and Paul tried to pull his hair when he turned him down on a date. He’d slapped him then punched him in the stomach and stomped on him a few times for good measure before sprinting away. 

Most victories looked something like that for Kim, he was nerdy and a girl, he didn’t have the strength advantage or the size. If he could’ve gotten in a solid hit, winded him, and made a break for it, he’d have been in the clear. 

When there’s nowhere to run, when you’re already down, Nosebleed knew the smartest thing to do was try to cover your head and get them to leave you alone. That was the problem with Wally Mack. He never fucking left well enough alone. 

Nosebleed was not going down without a fight, and he backed himself up against the filing cabinet and got his knee up to his chest. Wally had a hand in his hair as Kim kicked him in the stomach hard, hard enough to bruise. Wally stumbled, but he just took Kim along with him, dragging him back by the ponytail and throwing him down to the floor. He let go of Nosebleed’s hair just to wind his fist back and pound knuckle to face, to sterile tile flooring. Lights exploded behind Nosebleed’s eyes, and his vision doubled. 

His head cracked against the floor as he tried to wriggle free and an open palm forced him right back down. The weight was removed from him and someone kicked him in the stomach, hard. He curled in into a little ball, dragging his arms over his head, closing his eyes and trying to be anywhere else but right here. Something hit his back, and the pain skittered up and down his nerves. Then again. 

For a second, Nosebleed thought he’d heard the woosh of a door, but Wally knocked that thought right out of his head with the full rotation of his body behind a stomp to his ribcage that made him feel like a balloon filled with too much air and about to pop. His lungs couldn’t fill properly, and he gasped through huge, rasping breaths, squirming away from the next stomp. 

But it never came. The edge of his lab coat sleeve was tugged roughly with the friction of Wally’s boot, and pinched a bit , but the resulting flinch hurt more than the accident itself. Loud, angry voices were shouting back and forth, but by the time he’d blinked away the film covering his vision and sat up, Wally Mack was hitting the floor with a startling thump, out cold.

Butch motherfucking Deloria rubbed his knuckles, smirking to himself. He turned to look at Nosebleed, grimacing and flinching back for a moment before he swaggered towards him and sagged gingerly down to one knee. 

“What the hell,” He shouted, right into Nosebleed’s ringing ear, “Why’d you let him pound on you? Jesus christ...” Butch’s hand grabbed the Kim kid’s chin and dragged across his nearly fractured jaw, wiping the stream of blood from his chin. He grit his teeth and yanked his head back, cursing quietly. Butch snorted. 

Nosebleed took a shaky, rattling breath and looked up at him, glaring through tears Butch had seen building in her eyes. Nosebleed had always been a crybaby.“I didn’t let him do anything, asshole. Fuck off.” 

That surprised a short lived laugh out of Butch, and he removed his hands to hold them up in surrender. “Woah, daddy’s girl breaking out the bad words, it must be serious.” 

Her face shifted to disgust, and after a moment of thought, she looked the bastard dead in the eye and wound up, spitting at him right in the face. Her tooth bounced off his cheek. The splatter of blood and saliva clung to him, at least until he scrambled to wipe it off with a girlish shout. 

“What the hell is your problem!” He bellowed at her as he scuttled to his feet, but Nosebleed had nowhere left to shrink to. 

“You! You’re my fucking problem!” he exploded, backed into a corner finally after years of running. Propped up on one aching wrist, he grabbed the first thing his hands found and chucked a desk lamp at his head. He missed Butch by a longshot, but he made him flinch in on himself and cower. Hah.

Butch’s face was pure confusion.“I didn’t do anything,” he screamed back, like he hadn’t been making Kim’s life hell since they knew what hell meant. Like he wasn’t the one that planted the word “nosebleed” next to his name in everyone’s fucking head, like even Nosebleed’s life wasn’t completely and utterly fucked for having had Butch in it. 

“You’ve been doing shit since we were six years old!” he screeched, and he was far past being embarrassed when his voice cracked on the high note and angry tears spilled from his eyes, “Why can’t you just leave me the fuck alone!” 

“I’m not the one who stomped you, you psycho nut!” Butch screams right back, throwing his arms in the air. 

“Just leave me the fuck alone..” Nosebleed sobbed. He dragged himself to lean against the cabinets behind him, tucking his knees to his chest despite the burning pain and burying his face in them. 

Butch looked at Kim’s kid with absolute bafflement. She seemed so little right then, ugly crying into her knees and quivering in pain. “Fine then!” He shouted in frustration, “See if you can fix that shit on your own! God you’re so goddamn...” he trailed off into a mutter and turned on his heel to storm out the door. 

“IM A FUCKING DOCTOR” Nosebleed bellowed. The stapler from his desk he blindly flung bounced off the wall beside Butch’s head. 

If mechanical sliding doors could slam, this one would. 

\--

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,  
Into the living sea of waking dreams,  
Where there is neither sense of life or joys,  
But the vast shipwreck of my life’s esteems;  
Even the dearest that I loved the best  
Are strange—nay, rather, stranger than the rest. 

\--

“I’m not going to Monica Kendall’s 9th birthday party,” Kim said, incredulous that he would even have to specify this. 

Breakfast was an informal meal, in Vault 101. Similarly to after dinner, the cafeteria was open and serving breakfast before work hours began, to anyone and everyone who made the trek out. 

“It’ll be fun for you, I promise,” Amata pleaded, her fork dangling loosely from her hand, “It’s a kid’s party, no one’s going to be making out or drinking or anything crazy. It’s going to be nice!” 

In practise, most people in the vault never stuck around for breakfast. It’s early, you have to be working soon, and morning break is at a more appropriate eating hour anyways. But Amata liked to talk to Kim every day, as if she thought one day without her calming presence would be the straw that broke the camel’s back, and Kim had always refused to go near the cafeteria after dinner. 

That’s where the Tunnel Snakes hung out. That’s where the class of 2274 hung out, and that’s where the class of 2264 hung out before them. That’s where Monica Kendall’s class of 2284 would hang out after them.

Kim takes a bite of rubbery scrambled eggs, and tries not to look too dead inside at the idea. “Nice for you, maybe.”

Amata would have usually given up then, but her weirdly persistent attitude continued. “It would be nice for you if you ever gave socializing a go. It’s been a year and a half since you gave people a chance, and that’s pretending like you ever really tried in school.”

Kim grit his teeth and nearly snapped his fork in two. He glared at his plate, taking a deep breath as he cycled through the hundred things he wanted to say to that. “I fucking tried,” wanted to come out of his mouth, but there wasn’t a way to say it that wasn’t whiny. Pathetic. Embarrassing. 

“I don’t need you to salvage my social life for me,” He snapped, bitterly, “I don’t like them, they don’t like me. That’s just the way it is.” 

“I’m not trying to-” Amata huffed, frustrated. “Look, all I’m saying is you should give them a chance. Christine told me to invite you, it’s almost the one year anniversary of G.O.A.T day! You’re not giving them a fair shake! They’re good people, and my friends. And…”

Andy whirred gently to life in the corner as the P.A. sounded throughout the vault, fifteen minutes before the work day started. The two other people in the cafeteria, the Holden kid from maintenance and Officer O’Brian got up to go. 

Amata looked at him with pity in her eyes. “There’s a staffing shortage for security guards because of the party, so Wally can’t go. I just… thought it might be a good chance.”

Kim glared through his glasses, pissed off in every inch of his body. “I’m not afraid of that asshole. I don’t want to go because I don’t care about any of them.” Amata scoffed. “They all hate me anyways.” 

“You’re 17 now!” Amata exclaimed, “You’re never going to get anyone to stop being rude to you if you stoop to their level!”

“Maybe I don’t fucking care about what they think of me,” he snapped, and he picked up his tray and got to his feet. “If they don’t hate me then they should, because I can’t stand them, and I don’t want to.” 

Amata followed his angry movements with growing dissatisfaction and annoyance in her eyes. “Your dad thought it was a good idea,” she said, as if just to be hurtful at this point, “He’s worried about you, you know. People care about you. He cares about you.” 

Kim snorted. It should have been surprising that Amata talked about him with his father, but it wasn’t, really. “He cares about his daughter. I’m not that.” 

He had his back to Amata, but he could picture her face as she searched for an appropriate response. They hadn’t really… talked about it. Kim didn’t really want to. People knew, now, and sometimes he even corrected them (which they inevitably ignored). “I don’t know what to say to that,” Amata replied. 

She sounded hurt, and sad. It pulled at his heartstrings in a way Kim hated desperately. “Fine,” he shrugged, “I’ll go, whatever. I have to go punch in anyways,” he turned around to give her one last deadpan glare before leaving. “Have a good day, Overseer.” 

\--

The moment Butch had swaggered into the atrium he knew he wasn’t wanted. 

He looked around for his gang instantly, but to his disappointment Paul and Freddie stood shoulder to shoulder with their fathers on the other side of the room. The two officers chatted amiably while their sons stood silently at their sides, holding little plastic cups and actively avoiding Butch’s eye. 

Butch was distracted by a burst of shrill of children’s laughter, racketing his shoulders up to his ears on instinct and scowling. He fucking hated little kids. Why the hell did he let Susie convince him to come to this?

The kids were all Monica’s age and younger, playing in a circle surrounded by helicopter mothers with big happy smiles. It was one of THOSE vault events. The ones he hadn't been wanted at since the first time Ellen DeLoria had thrown up in a fake potted plant during the Founder’s Day potluck. 

The happy families of vault 101 were deafening, engaged in happy family conversation, an impenetrable defense against Butch the loner. He ghosted around the social bubbles and slipped his way to the refreshments table, but the longer he scoped out the scene the more hopeless it seemed. Susie was playing alone with the kids, but she was still being weird over their breakup. Christie was playing host. Amata was grovelling at the Overseer’s feet. 

He picked up a cup of watered down lemonade and clutched it in his fist, feeling increasingly jumpy and agitated. Part of him wanted to march right up to Paul and give him a taste of knuckle sandwich for ignoring him, but contrary to what Mr. B had always said, he did actually have a brain.

Mr. B was at the party. He was one of the old bastards on folding chairs in the back corner, retired now and as bitter as ever. 

Butch was happy to see that his hair seemed a little long for comfort. He’d had that attitude he’d always had, the first and last time he’d come to Butch for a chop, like he owned Butch, like he was better or something. Butch had shaved his head bald and gotten halfway through the left eyebrow before the old man managed to break free. 

He hadn’t come back since. 

Most of the old fogies of the vault were sat on their stupid folding chairs with him, next to the stupid fake ferns holding their stupid party hats. 

He dropped his gaze, then did a double take. There’s someone alone on a bench behind the ferns. Someone with thick rimmed glasses, a black ponytail and no friends. 

Ding ding ding! Butch kicks off the table and bounds over to his peer excitedly, shouting, “Nosebleed! What’re you doing here?” 

Kim startles and looks up at Butch, confused. After his expression focuses, the kid shrugs and shakes his head. “Nothing,” he deadpans.

Butch rolls his eyes. “Don’t be like that man, the two of us, we should do something fun!”

Kim raises a single eyebrow, and the sheer amount of disdain and incredulity communicated through the expression makes Butch laugh. “And why would I want to do that?” He asks, innocently enough.

“Don’t be a loser, c’mon, roll with the Butchman!” Butch insists, pumping a fist in the air. Kim shoots nervous glances around the room, never comfortable being at the center of a scene. 

If that’s all it takes to get him out of his seat, well, Butch can definetely cause a scene. 

“Fine,” Nosebleed scowls, “What are we doing?” 

This is where Butch’s plan falls apart almost instantly. Would Nosebleed want to go bust down the doors to storage closets? Break into the Cafeteria back room and loot it? Common sense would say the Kim’s kid would be a goody two shoes, but Butch’s instincts say otherwise. What else do normal teens do? 

“Well I’m thirsty,” He floats, “refreshments they’ve got here are shit.” 

Kim’s kid perks up. “Oh, shit, I actually have a good idea,” he says, sounding surprised by every word that comes out of his mouth. “Stanley’s still here, right?” 

If you’d asked Kim where he thought he’d be when he woke up this morning, watching Butch DeLoria pick the lock on the Armstrong apartment’s door while humming the tune to The Adventures of Captain Cosmos under his breath would have been incredibly low on the list. 

“Who do you think would win in a fight,” He asks in a deadpan, “Jangles the Moon Monkey or The Unstoppables.” 

Butch stops humming and takes a moment to think about it far more genuinely then Kim had intended. “Huh,” he says, “Well he’d definitely kick Manta Man’s ass. I feel like he’d get the drop on the Silver Shroud too because he wouldn’t expect a fucking monkey to jump him.” 

“The Silver Shroud is the world’s greatest detective,” Kim argues for the sake of disagreeing, “You don’t think he has contingencies for that? He probably knew Jangles had gone rouge before Captain Cosmos even did.” 

“The Silver Shroud is a loser,” Butch counters, “he gets his ass handed to him by everyone and he only ever wins because his girlfriend saves him.” 

“The Mistress of Mystery would murder that goddamn monkey,” Kim agrees, sagely. 

Butch grunts, then giggles, “and, and Grognak would.. Grognak would eat him. Like roast Jangles on a spit or something.” 

Kim blinks, delighted and horrified. Keeping his deadpan composure, he utters, “he’d offer a piece to Captain Cosmos and he’d just start sobbing.”

The phrase “a piece of Jangles Jerky” hardly makes it out of his own mouth before Butch looses it, doubled over in laughter at his own stupid joke. Kim watches him with a smile pulling at the corners of his stoic facade. 

Once Butch cracks the lock Kim strides into the kitchen, hopping up onto the countertop as gracefully as he can and reaching for the nook above the cabinets on his tippy toes.

Butch waffles, “What are you... what?” 

“Stanley has a booze stash. He trades me sometimes,” Nosebleed explains, reaching down carefully to plunk a rectangular bottle down on the counter. “For drugs and stuff. Perks of being a pharmacist.” 

“Won’t he notice?” Butch asks, walking over to pick up the bottle and read the label. It’s gin, the kind his mom hates. He’s drank it before, it tastes just as shitty as everything else does. 

“No,” Nosebleed dismisses, lowering a large bottle of wine into Butch’s waiting grasp. 

Butch looks up at Kim’s kid suspiciously. “I didn’t think you’d have time for drinking, what with being a nerd ‘n all.” 

Kim doesn’t flinch, still clinking around with the bottles up there looking for god knows what. After a moment, he snorts. “The hell else is there to do in this stupid vault? Even nerds get bored.” 

Nosebleed wants to roll his eyes at his own pathetic posturing, but at the very least it’s effective. When he turns around with two bottles of vodka Butch’s chest is puffed out and he’s forcing a laugh. “Yeah, I mean yeah, obviously. I totally drink too, like, when I’m messing around with the gang.” 

“Sure,” Kim agrees, holding out a bottle for him to take. Butch grabs the vodka with his free hand, getting close enough under the yellow lights for Kim to see his face is red and his palms are sweaty. Hah. 

Kim’s kid hops down from the counter deftly, with the same flat face. The walk back to his apartment is awkwardly silent, questions building volume inside Butch’s head as they go to the point of near deafening. 

Keeping his mouth shut is almost painful by the time they pass through his bedroom doors. 

“I’m gonna grab Nukes,” Kim tells him, “Cherry or regular?” 

“Cherry,” Butch says, his voice hoarse. Kim nods and leaves the door open as he walks back out into the kitchen, opening the fridge. 

Butch has a moment to look around at Kim’s room. The Kim’s family apartment is actually in the bottom of the vault with the DeLorias, despite their social status, since it’s just a two-bedroom for the Doc and Kim. It’s small, like Butch’s apartment, and Kim’s room is almost identical. He’s pushed his furniture around so much he can barely remember a time where it was laid out like this, but it’s the same dresser, same bed. 

He’s clean too - much cleaner then Butch. His bed is perfectly made, his floors spotless. Butch walks over to his desk to put down the drinks and picks up the glossy, pristine BB gun laid lovingly on top, paying the medical journals and paperwork hardly a glance.

“Be careful with that,” Nosebleed says behind him, and Butch nearly jumps out of his skin. 

“Jeez, don’t sneak up on a guy like that!” He yells, clutching the gun to his chest, “I was just looking, relax!”

Nosebleed shakes his head and takes a seat on his bed, “I know. Just don’t drop it or whatever, cus then I’ll have to fix it. It’s getting pretty old.” 

Butch’s shoulders drop a little, and he relaxes. “Oh yeah, fine, whatever, screw you. How long have you had it? It doesn’t look old.” 

“Since I was ten,” Kim says, “My dad and Jonas got it for me as a birthday present.” 

“Wasn’t that the birthday we got into a scrap over a sweetroll or something? I’m pretty sure I still have that mark on my record.” Butch holds out his hand and does grabby fingers until Kim passes him his Nuka Cola. 

They drink, in the utilitarian way that you do when you’re trying to get drunk fast and enjoying yourself is far from a priority. Butch sober is talkative, but drunk Butch talks so fast and uninterupted it nearly fades into a white noise in Kim’s mind. 

Butch is reciting an awful, conveluted, impossible to follow story of potentially a prank he pulled on Old Lady Palmer (at this point Butch’s stories had all blended together into one super-tale painted over with broad stroke usage of the word “cool”) when Kim suddenly sits up and puts a hand over Butch’s mouth. 

Butch shouts but Nosebleed shushes him fiercly, and a second later the pair of them hear the front door to Kim’s apartment whoosh open. “James is home,” Kim whispers furiously, glancing towards his closed bedroom door in anticipation. 

Footsteps walk into the apartment and through the kitchen, pausing for a moment outside Kim’s bedroom. Neither Butch or Nosebleed breathe as they wait, long seconds that seem like years. 

Outside the door, James sighs and walks away. The sound of his own bedroom door whooshing open causes both the teenage boys to sigh in relief. 

“I could hide under your bed?” Butch offers under his breath, but Nosebleed shakes his head and gets to his feet, suddenly very sober looking. 

Kim looks back at him and frowns. The same cannot be said for Butch, who’s hair is stuck up at odd angles and face is bright red and glowing. “Let me just go say goodnight to him,” Kim says, “so he doesn’t try and come in or something.” 

Butch gets unsteadily to his feet and flicks out his comb as Kim zips back up his vault jumpsuit and redoes his ponytail. Butch’s hair is a lost cause, a large cowlick bravely preserving against his best efforts to grease it down. Kim punches him in the arm to get him to stop, to which Butch shoves him back. Nosebleed glares at him until Butch stops giggling, and opens the door. 

Butch’s giggling was apparently loud enough to cover the sound of footsteps, because as Nosebleed’s hand hovers over the door switch, he hears the switch on the other side click and his father freezes in the entrance to his room, mouth agape. 

Nosebleed is similarly paralyzed. He can feel Butch stop fidgeting behind him, looming over his shoulder. After a long moment of tense silence, Butch slurs, “Hey Doc.”

James nods stiffly. “Hello Butch,” he replies cautiously, “I just wanted to tell you to take the morning off tomorrow, since you must be tired from the party.” 

Kim can feel his dad’s eyes drifting to the alcohol bottles strewn across his floor and Butch’s obivously inebriated state. If he were to have a sudden heart attack and die on the spot in this moment it would be a mercy. 

“Butch was just leaving, actually”, Kim announces, grabbing Butch’s wrist and dragging him out of the apartment bodily, practically throwing him into the hallway. Even as he turns away to face the room he can hear Butch’s sneakers hitting the linoleum in a dead sprint. His dad starts to say his name - the wrong name, he thinks, as if there’s a right one - as he passes by his door again but Nosebleed stalks into his own bedroom and locks the door behind him. 

He speeds through the process of hiding the evidence, in case his father decides to confront him tonight, then collapses on his bed face first. Shame and anger well up inside him until they’re too much to take, and he pummels the mattress with his fists until the urge to scream isn’t ringing in his ears. 

He doesn’t sleep. He doesn’t even try. He sits on his bed cross legged and tries to find a reason for all the emotions strangling his airways. 

\--

It’s July 13th, 

For his 18th birthday, his dad gets him a new lab coat. There's a name tag sewn into the breast pocket that makes him want to throw up. They yell at each other twice each, before falling back into the same routine; Slamming doors whenever the other walks into the room, speaking only when spoken to.

Amata is sitting in on a security meeting for the better part of the afternoon, and Jonas stopped wanting to be his babysitter when Kim was ten. There’s really only one person in the vault Nosebleed is on civil terms with, crazy enough.

For his 18th birthday, Nosebleed decides to go get a haircut. 

Butch looks up when the doors to his crappy little parlor open. To say he’s surprised to see Nosebleed would be an understatement, in the two years since Butch took over this cobwebbed corner of the vault Kim had never stopped by. 

Plus, Kim had been avoiding being alone in a room with him since his dad caught them drinking a few months ago. 

“Look what the cat dragged in!” He grins, “Nosebleed, what can I do you for?” 

Kim’s brain visibly halts in place, immediately shutting down. Butch wonders how long it’s been since he had a social interaction with someone who wasn’t Amata or his dad. 

Before he can bolt for the doors before he’s even said a word, Butch spins around the barber chair and beckons him in. “You’re lucky I didn’t take a shift at maintenance today, my schedule’s empty as can be.” When Kim remains frozen in the doorway he snaps, “Sit down or get out, Nosebleed.” 

His deadpan look doesn’t shift but he rolls his eyes after a beat and chooses to sit. Butch grabs him by the shoulders and spins the chair around to face the mirror, smirking at the disgruntled look on Kim’s perfect face. 

“What’re you looking for then?” Butch asks, dramatically flinging the salon cape around his front and tying it around his neck. He gently catches the baby hairs at the nape of Kim’s neck and combs them out of the way of the knot. 

Kim stares at himself in the mirror, eyes glossed over as he takes a few deep breaths before he can respond. “Just…. short. Like a boy’s.”

Butch tears his eyes away from Kim’s neck to look at him through the mirror in exasperation. “Thanks, genius, now what kind of haircut do you want.”

Kim frowns back at him, looking anywhere but into Butch’s eyes through the mirror. “I don’t fucking know boy’s haircuts. Whatever you think.”

Butch watches him fluster endearingly and smiles, removing his glasses with gentle hands. “Sure thing, Nosebleed,” he replies softly, and gets out his fine-toothed comb. 

Butch starts with taking Kim’s hair out of it’s permanent ponytail, and when it fans around his face he almost wants to refuse to chop it right then and there. Kim has gorgeous hair, he thinks as he combs it reverently, not that he ever shows it. The way it frames his face makes him look more angular and dark, it’s really textured and thick. He looks like one of those cool ancient warrior guys in the comic books. He looks like a babe-magnet, honestly, especially without those stupid chunky frames. 

He restrains himself from wolf whistling because that’s a dude, weird, but Kim must see it on his face because he’s glaring at Butch from behind the black strands. It’s too thick to chop all of it in one ponytail, so he sections it off into pieces and examines the ends. 

“When’s the last time you got a haircut?” He asks conversationally.

With extreme reluctance, Kim replies, “...I trim the ends every month or so myself. It’s never been shorter than my shoulders.” 

Butch’s eyebrows shoot up. “Really? Jeez, I guess so huh? It’s a big leap to go, isn’t it?” 

Kim doesn’t nod, keeping his head very still, but he hums. “I’m 18 now. My dad doesn’t get to decide how long my hair needs to be anymore.” 

“18?” Butch cocks his head as he snips the scissors, “Oh hell, when was your birthday?” 

Kim watches his hands intently in the mirror as Butch’s scissors work hard to cut through the first ponytail of hair. “Today,” he replies, offhandedly. 

“Really?” Butch slaps his arm, “Happy birthday then. What’re you doing to celebrate?” 

“This,” Kim replies, and closes his eyes. “I don’t want to talk anymore,” he goes ahead and emphasizes, and Butch snorts but obeys. If Kim minds that he sings under his breath with the radio and mumbles about what he’s doing, he doesn’t say.

It takes a while, too, with that much hair, but when Butch is done he’s proud as all hell. I mean, wow, look at that. You might as well call him an artist. 

“There ya go,” He tells Kim, untying the cape and flinging it off, “Best haircut you’ve ever gotten, all thanks to the Butch man.”

Nosebleed opens his eyes slowly, and for a moment Butch is worried he’s going to hate it. He’d kinda gone wild with the lack of suggestion, and he hadn’t left much to work with. He’d slicked it down with some grease, he’d have to give Nosebleed a can and show him how to use it. “Very Clark Gable, I was going for,” he babbles nervously, “Like a classy preppy guy, but he could steal your woman. Dignified, or whatever.” 

Nosebleed just stares at himself. He reaches up to touch it, smooth a hand over it. Butch doesn’t even notice his hands are still resting on his shoulders. He shoves them in his pockets, trying to look normal and cool.

“.... Thank you,” Kim tries to say, but his voice cracks and he has to cut himself off. Butch isn’t really sure what to do with himself while Kim regains his composure, so he just kind of stands there until his hands find their way back to Nosebleed’s shoulders and give them a squeeze. 

“Anytime,” He says, unconfidently, and Kim nods with enough certainty for the both of them. 

One month and 4 days later, Nosebleeds escapes the vault. 

\--

When he’d first heard his mom’s scream, he’d bolted to her room, fists at the ready for whatever asshole he needed to knock into next week. 

When Butch’d seen the radroaches crawling out of the walls, his feet had taken him even faster right back out, and his heart didn’t stop hammering until the door’d been closed tight behind him. It stopped hammering when it skipped a beat at his mom’s scream, and for a second his hand jerked to open the door again, to rush in and save her. 

"C’mon Butch," he mutters to himself, "just open the fucking door, they’re just roaches, you’re a Tunnel Snake! You don’t take shit from-"

He turns his back and started to pace. 

Thundering footsteps of someone sprinting down the hall caught his attention. He swung around out the front door of their room, yelling, “You gotta help me!” 

The Doctor’s fucking kid slows down in their sprint and looks wildly over to his shout, face a white sheet of pure panic. A 10mm pistol hangs loosely in his fist - the ones that the guards carry on their hips - and his BB gun is slung across his back. He's bleeding, something grazed his cheek, and his eyes dart wildly like an animal. If Butch's heart wasn't already pounding, he'd be scared shitless twice over. This is Nosebled though, he wouldn't hurt Butch. 

Not even when Butch deserved it. 

“You gotta help me,” he plows forward, “My Mom’s trapped in there with the roaches!” 

“What?” Nosebleed jumps and glances back over his shoulder as gunshots echo from somwhere deep in the vault

“She’s in the bedroom, with the roaches!” He shouts, “C’mon man, you gotta help!” 

His face, twisted in confusion and anger shows no sign of processing. “Butch, I have to go. Help your mom your fucking self.” 

“No,” he begs, “I can’t go back in there. It’s…” he swallows his pride, “It’s dark and there’s radroaches!” 

“You’re scared of the dark?” Nosebleed laughs, a bit hysterically. 

“No!” He protests, his voice breaking shrilly, “I mean... it's not the dark, it's the Radroaches. I... I can't stand them.” His eyes start to water a little, panic overtaking him, he can hear his mother shouting still. He’s about to cry in front of the crybaby, great. “I tried to go back in to get her, I really did! But I couldn't.” 

He hears his mother call his name, “Butchie!”, and his resolve breaks, “You gotta help me!” He begs, “She's not going to last much longer in there! Can't you hear her screaming?”

Right on que, Ellen Deloria lets out a shriek that could be heard from the other end of the vault. That catches Nosebleeds attention, and he instantly perks up and rushes past Butch towards the scream, shooting him a quick, “Fine! But cover my ass for me!” as he charges straight through. 

Butch has no clue what he’s meant to do until he hears running and whips back around to see Officer Kendall charging down the hallway, pistol in hand and riot gear on. When he sees Butch, he marches right over. 

“Goddammit Butch, get back in your room!” 

For a moment his brain spins before he stumbles an apology, “Oh, uh, sorry Officer. I'll go right back inside.” Behind him he no longer hears Ellen or Nosebleed, and starts to get worried.

Kendall seems put off, anger fading away to confusion, like he was expecting Butch to resist the command in some way. “Uh, Okay then.” He turns as if to walk away before turning back, glaring suspiciously. “Hey, you haven't seen the Doc's kid, have you? We're still looking for her. She was leaving her quarters just as I got there, but then I got jumped by some roaches and she got away.”

What the fuck kind of hot water did Nosebleed get himself into, Butch wonders, but stays true to his promise. Excessively polite, he answers with an innocent smile, “No, sir. Good luck with your search though.”

Kendall seems freaked out by his acting, but doesn’t question it. “Righto. Give a yell if you see anything. I'm going to head down this way,” he growls, and with that, he’s off. 

As soon as he’s out of earshot, Butch rushes to the back room at the speed of light. Nosebleed is bent over his mother, surrounded by squashed and shot radroach meat smeared over the floor. Butch nearly throws up at the sight. 

“Your leg seems fine, Ms. Deloria. Apply an anti-bacterial cream and wrap in it a bandage to keep it clean, and it should heal in no time,” Nosebleed is instructing her, bent over to inspect the deep gashes in Ms. Deloria's shins. 

“Thank you, sweetheart,” His mother replies faintly, patting Nosebleed drunkenly on the head, “You’re a dear.” 

“We did it!” Butch cheers, sinking into a pool of relieved euphoria, “My mom's gonna be okay! You're the best friend I've ever had, man!” He picks Nosebleed up in a hug and spins him around, laughing. 

Nosebleed puts a safe distance between them the second Butch puts him down, stumbling a little from the vertigo. He pats Butch on the arm awkwardly and says nothing, grimacing. Butch couldn’t care less, grinning hard enough his face could break. 

And idea hits him and Butch whips off his jacket to comply, thrusting it towards the doc’s kid violently. “Hey, I know it isn’t much, but I want you to have my Tunnel Snakes jacket.” Nosebleed hesitates, so Butch shoves it at him harder, “Go ahead, take it.” 

Gingerly, he shrugs the leather on. He’s bigger than any of the girls, his shoulder's broader now then when they were kids, so it doesn’t hang off him like it did when Susie or Christine had tried it on, flirtly draping the jacket over their bony shoulders. Butch had never really noticed it before, what with his terrible posture, always curled in on himself, but the way Kim looked now was different. Standing tall, holding a gun with confidence he shouldn't rightly possess, wearing Butch's jacket and a mean look. Butch wasn't just intimidated by him, hell, he was a little in awe. 

“Thanks.” Nosebleed mumbles, and glances towards the open doors as the alarms blare even louder, shocking them both out of the moment. 

“I have to go.” Nosebleed tells him, like he’s reading his own eulogy. Something really bad going on, Butch knows, but what the doc’s kid has to do with it, he’s got no clue. 

And before he can ask, Nosebleed is gone. Belatedly, Butch realized Nosebleed hadn't been wearing his glasses. 

\--

Nosebleed stands there for a while, head resting against the metal door of the vault, vision blurred, clutching the leather jacket around himself, holding a holotape and Jonas's crushed glasses in his hand. He wants to cry, he expects himself to cry, but the tears never come. Jonas’s dead body exists behind his eyelids every time he closes them, but when they’re open all he sees is the numbers 101. 

It takes everything he’s got to walk out the cave entrance, and into the storm.

\--

I long for scenes where man hath never trod  
A place where woman never smiled or wept  
There to abide with my Creator, God,  
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,  
Untroubling and untroubled where I lie  
The grass below—above the vaulted sky.

**Author's Note:**

> poem is "I Am!" by John Clare
> 
> I miiiiiiiiight finish and post a second chapter of the two of them in the wasteland together. but also i haven't updated prison and how not to be there since like march so i'm clearly not a trustworthy person


End file.
